Hedge fund D.E. Shaw's flagship fund posts double-digit returns

D.E. Shaw, which oversees roughly $50 billion, is one of a handful of firms to report double digit gains for 2018. Many hedge funds are reporting losses after the late-year stock market collapse caught them off guard.

In December the fund gained 3.5 percent, handily outperforming the S&P 500 which lost 9 percent during the month. For the year, the average hedge fund lost 6.7 percent according to early data from Hedge Fund Research and the S&P lost 6.2 percent. A spokesman for the firm declined to comment.

The Composite Fund pursues a mix of computer based and discretionary strategies and has notched double-digit returns in seven of the last 10 years. In 2017 the fund returned 10.3 percent. It has been closed to new investors since 2013.

D.E. Shaw was founded by computer scientist David Shaw and once employed Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.